2009-07-27

Getting across

Honeybuns and I decided to ride Tvärbanan from end to end and do some sight-seeing on the way.

We started at the Alvik end ➀. The way out to Gröndal➁ is one of the roller-coaster bits of Tvärbanan, with fairly steep inclines; very exciting. Gröndal is a little small-town district hidden right outside the central city with little traffic, quaint 1950s-style shops and greenery everywhere. I had sorted mail for this area, doing work practice in 9th grade, but never actually been there. We stepped off and walked around until we found a cliff overlooking the Essingen islands and lay there for a while, listening to the not-so-distant sounds of the city. Then we descended to the the waterfront and followed the boardwalk to its end whence we returned to the tram stop.

Having passed the flat Årsta Field we did some more roller-coasting to get to terminal at Sickla Udde ➂ in Hammarby Sjöstad. The worst sterility of the area seems to have worn off, but this was apparently neither intentional nor desirable—the boardwalk had been deemed no longer fresh and appetizing enough, so carpenters were busily replacing everything with fresh wood. We are now waiting to see if they will start euthanising residents deemed not to be hip enough.

We got to the ferry just in time and rode over to the Södermalm side, where a judicious turn at the right time landed us in the 18th Century houses in the Barnängen area ➃. We admired the gardens of Barnängen Manor, chatted with a lascivious cat and some busy bumblebees and walked up towards Vitabergsparken. More greenery, amphitheatre and a bandstand. I'm always interested in churches, so we ascended to the top of the park and Sofia Church. It was built in a period which made it either too late or too early to be architecturally interesting. The sound of someone furiously typing up in the organ loft was a bit curious, but perhaps not very strange in this day and age. More 18th Century houses. What does it take to get a contract here?

Now we were rather hungry and started our descent: Renstiernas gata, Katarinavägen and over Slussen to the Old Town ➄. In hunger-induced brain-deadness we made the mistake of choosing a restaurant on Västerlånggatan, ordinarily we know that there is nothing but tourist traps there. Michelangelo did not disappoint in this respect but in most others. While we waited for our food I studied the rave reviews they had prominently posted on the wall—they were from 1979, when the restaurant had recently opened, clearly not only the prices had changed since then. The food was served reasonably quickly and it was competently prepared, but no more. I certainly could have done something just as good myself and for the price I would have expected a considerably larger portion. No tip.